Page:Nicolae Iorga - My American lectures.djvu/160

 church of St. Germain), then by the advent of Marysienka, a minor noble’s daughter, who espoused John Sobieski, the liberator of Vienna, which thereafter remained indebted and intimately attached to his smart wife. In the 18th century this fashion extended itself over the whole of Polish society, and Stanislas Poniatowski, unfortunate and unjustly ridiculed, the last ruler of the once-glorious realm, was at the same time almost president of a Court academy in the sense of the Parisian « cercles » of the time.

A much earlier origin than either of these is to be sought in regard to South-Eastern Europe.

French influence did not here commence with the development of the French monarchy. It is much older and represents the advance of the race itself. It must be connected with the great mediaeval phenomena of the crusades which afforded French chivalry and also the masses of frantically enthusiastic peasants led by the half-mad Peter the Hermit, not merely an opportunity of meeting a new world, but of making known to its peoples their own manner of life. They built castles and created baronies, counties, dukedoms and principalities; in fact a complete constellation of new States not only in Asia, but especially in the occupied provinces of the Eastern Empire from Phillipopolis to the farthest parts of Morea, from Asia Minor to the coasts of the Adriatic Sea.

It is impossible to say how important was the presence of the French nobility, especially in Morea. In the capital itself the number of knights was very small: the greater part of the warriors who had gone campaigning for the sake of Christ and their own gain returned to their countries, bringing with them only the record of an extraordinary, almost fabulous achievement. But in the peninsula of Greece the feudal knights remained: they built strong castles on the tops of mountains and ruled numerous vassals